A new global coral reef database was released by the United Nations Environmental Programme World Conservation Monitoring Center (UNEP-WCMC). It represents the global distribution of tropical, sub-tropical coral reefs. It was created from multiple sources, including USF's Millennium Coral Reef Mapping Project Seascape database and merged together by UNEP-WCMC and the WorldFish Centre in collaboration with WRI and TNC. It should be seen as an "interim" global product. The Approximate % coverage of data sources are as follows - Millennium Coral Reefs (Unvalidated) 50% - Millennium Coral Reefs (Validated) 30 % - Other sources 20%.

Citation: UNEP-WCMC

The dataset comprises 3 main components and must be cited in the following manner strictly maintaining the three separate entities in their entirety:

Millennium Coral Reef Mapping Project validated maps provided by the Institute for Marine Remote Sensing, University of South Florida (IMaRS/USF) and Institut de Recherche pour le Développement (IRD, Centre de Nouméa), with support from NASA.

Millennium Coral Reef Mapping Project unvalidated maps provided by the Institute for Marine Remote Sensing, University of South Florida (IMaRS/USF), with support from NASA. Unvalidated maps were further interpreted by UNEP-WCMC. Institut de Recherche pour le Développement (IRD, Centre de Nouméa) do not endorse these products.

Other data have been compiled from multiple sources by UNEP-WCMC and the WorldFish Centre in collaboration with WRI and TNC. Full source information is attached to individual polygons.

For display and use of data below the global scale please check and cite individual data sources according to the citations within the full source table provided with this dataset (UNEP-WCMC).
For more information, please visit:
http://data.unep-wcmc.org/datasets/1

Previous Work

The Institute for Marine Remote Sensing (IMaRS) at the University of South
Florida (USF) was funded by the Oceanography Program of the National Aeronautics and Space
Administration (NASA) to provide an exhaustive worldwide inventory of coral reefs using
high-resolution satellite imagery. By using a consistent dataset
of high-resolution (30 meter) multispectral Landsat 7 images acquired between 1999 and 2002,
USF characterized, mapped and estimated the extent of shallow coral reef ecosystems
in the main coral reef provinces (Caribbean-Atlantic, Pacific, Indo-Pacific, Red Sea).

The program aimed to highlight similarities and differences between reef structures at a
scale never before considered by traditional work based on field studies. It provided a reliable, spatially very well constrained data set for biogeochemical budgets, biodiversity assessment, reef structure comparisons and also provided critical information for reef managers in terms of reef location,
distribution and extent, since this basic information is still of high priority for
scientists and managers.